


Music Box Dancer

by setos_puppy



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotions everywhere, Flashbacks, I did way too much research for this, Kinda not sure if this is romantic or platonic, Memories, ballet dancer bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-17 22:24:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3545939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/setos_puppy/pseuds/setos_puppy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I’m one of 28 young dancers with the Bolshoi/I’m one of 28 Hydra agents with the Red Room— The training is hard/The training is hard— But the glory of Soviet culture/But the glory of Soviet supremacy— And the warmth of my parents/And the warmth of my parents— Makes up for/Makes up for…</p>
<p>No...</p>
<p>That's not right...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Music Box Dancer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fuck_me_barnes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuck_me_barnes/gifts).



> So, this was inspired by a conversation on Tumblr with user fuck_me_barnes, who is wonderful and evil and filled with pain. It started originally on a post where the original poster took a gif of Bucky/The Winter Soldier from a fight and stated how the flip/turn was very similar to a ballet maneouver. It devolved from there and there was much flailing and excited writing back and forth between the two of us. This is the result. I've been writing and re-writing this for the past two weeks and I've finally given up, written everything out before I could stop myself and this is it.

The floor under his feet is damp with blood.  The room is dark save for the slices of moonlight that work through the slats in the blinds.  His breathing is fast, ragged, and sloppy.  He shifts position, eyes flicking to the side, down at the floor, where he leaves sticky, bloodied prints with his toes.  He raises his arms, rolls his shoulders, cards the flesh hand through his hair as he loops it into a bun and fastens it in place with an elastic.  He pivots, studies his reflection in the wall of mirrors, at his face, his face that is not his face and is his face.

His metal hand rests atop the barre and he braces his weight firmly against the floor as he lifts his leg to rest on the springy wood.  He bows forward pressing his cheek to the strong muscle of his leg, drawing his arms up.  His body protests, the training long taught, echoing in his body, has long been ignored, and his body fights before submitting.  He relaxes into fifth position, moves so his arms rest behind him, lightly gripping the barre as he begins the warm up again.  His toes pop when he curls them when he moves into demi-pointes, he moves up and down, releasing the barre as he finally regains his balance.  He's always swayed to the left, the excess weight of the metal, even if counter balanced with the bits grafted to his bones, is always accounted for in his mind. 

Moving to the record player he sets the needle down.  The accompaniment is poor in comparison to the real thing, but it suffices.  Closing his eyes he begins to move, mouth pressed tight before relaxing as it feels as though he is floating, dancing variations that he choreographs in his mind.  Perhaps this time he will get it right... Perhaps this time...

He falters - sways left.  

Anger heats inside of himself and he presses the heel of his palms under his eyes as he lazily turns in place, slipping and sticking to the wood of the floor from the blisters that have long since broken in his feet.  

He never really was a dancer.  He knows that now.  That Sasha Smirnov was a construct of Hydra as so many things were, as _Zimnij Soldát_ was as well.  They're all in his head now, though.  After months - _years_? he can't be sure, time is abstract to him now - of deprogramming and reconstruction, he is all of them and himself and more and none.  He is James  Buchanan Barnes, his is Bucky, he is Sasha, Alexi, Vova, he is the Asset, the American, the Winter Soldier, he is all of these things and they are all him even if they are ghosts.  He carries them with him as lives lived and lost, as experience, as a way of movement, a flick of the eyes, a smirk, as a way to hold yourself upright, a way to hold a gun or kiss a woman.  

Just as Natalia is Natasha is the Black Widow he is these things as well.  She dances with him on occasion, the smile across her face as pure as the girl she was meant to be at the time.  She does not dance until her feet bleed, though, her ghosts are companions now, sharing the house of her mind instead of haunting her.  

Slight noise over the music makes him lift his head to the mirrors.  Steve has been there for ages, quietly pressing pencil to paper.  Wadded up balls of creative frustration litter around him like the blood across the floor does with his feet.  Steve's eyes meet his in the mirror and his head tips to the side in a question before a slow, easy smile spreads over his mouth and he places the pencil between his teeth to smudge at the graphite on paper with his fingers.  

His spine straightens and he lets his arms fall where they wish, curled close to his hips as he rocks toward his heels and then onto his toes.  He plies easily, leaps and lands almost soundlessly, extending outward he feels the phantoms of instructors who did not ever teach him guide his movement across the floor.  He falls into an arabesque easily, pulls himself upright to turn and run as the music swells and he jumps into a grande jete, extending outwards and free.  

He lands. Sways left. Rolls on the balls of his left foot and extends his right behind him in defiance to the urge to fall.  He recovers and uses the momentum to guide him into a pas corou and spins and spins.  He stops short, arms outstretched in offering, edges of his toes almost touching the crumpled balls of paper.  There is laughter in blue eyes and a curl of lips in a playful - are you sure? - smile.  Hands press into his own and he steps back, pulling easily and releasing the strong grip on the hands in his own.  He catches easily at ribs, just before waist and spins, rolls, delicately places feet back onto the floor.  

Uneasy breathing matches his own. White socks dampen with blood.  Indelicate hands bracket themselves on his shoulders, smudging the cotton of his shirt with graphite.  The smile, though, is trusting and carefree like the feeling of his dancing.  The spirit he achieves when he, bleeding soles and aching calves, jetes and there is nothing under foot.  He leads a manege, encircles them across the floor until the edges of the room blur around him.  

When he stops he is breathless and sways left.  

He grins, presses his nose against soft, creative-frustration mussed hair, and breathes.

He was one of the 28 dancers of the Bolshoi even if he wasn't.  

He was Sasha Smirnov, even if he wasn't.  

He is James Barnes and he dances ballet.  

He sways left even if he shouldn't.

And for now, for the moment, all of it is okay.

**Author's Note:**

> I did far too much research into this for what it is. I feel like I should be sorry for it, but I needed to know about the Bolshoi and their methods. Here are some links that inspired this piece and helped with the understanding of their methods.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwyj2dlYrfA  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzhNtqXziZQ  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCkQCMu4yPI  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6mgmXu-7_g  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZhDww1Z7MU
> 
> Reasons for not using the commonly used "Yasha" for Bucky's name are here
> 
> http://wintergaydar.tumblr.com/post/71487710917/hello-class-today-i-would-like-to-tell-you-why  
> http://uminoko.tumblr.com/post/79919414478/call-me-by-my-true-name-russian-naming
> 
> The name I chose, Sasha, is from Alexander, which means "defender" or "helper of mankind" and Smirnov means "meek" or "obedient", which I thought was too perfect and poetically painful for Bucky/the asset/the Soldier to have as a released name while on assignment.


End file.
